Flyers call up Gostisbehere

THE LAST time Shayne Gostisbehere played a meaningful hockey game on Wells Fargo Center ice, he netted three points and skated off with Union College's first NCAA championship in a win over powerhouse Minnesota.

Gostisbehere, 21, will have a slightly different set of nerves and expectations when he makes his NHL debut tonight against Detroit.

Many hope Gostisbehere will provide a shot in the arm for the sagging Flyers, who announced yesterday both top pairing defensemen Braydon Coburn and Andrew MacDonald will miss the next 4 weeks with injuries.

After preaching patience, the Flyers decided on recalling Gostisbehere, who was one of their best defensemen in training camp.

"You know, you come up with a plan and a vision and sometimes you just have to be flexible," Ron Hextall said. "We're going to bring up the player that helps our team."

Hextall said Coburn and Vinny Lecavalier would be retroactively placed on injured reserve, allowing the Flyers space on the 23-man roster.

Gostisbehere had two assists in the Phantoms' first three games of the season. He scored twice and added one assist in three preseason NHL contests - where his flashy transition game was on full display.

Coburn has been out since Opening Night, Oct. 8, with a left foot injury and experienced "a setback" this week after it appeared he was close to returning. MacDonald suffered his unknown injury in the Flyers' win in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, despite finishing the game.

"There's no such thing as replacing guys," Schenn said. "Those are two of our big-minute guys. We're going to need to fill that void and step up."

Hextall was not available yesterday to explain exactly why the Flyers chose Gostisbehere over other Phantoms players, including Mark Alt, Oliver Lauridsen or Brandon Manning. Both Lauridsen (15 games) and Manning (10 games) have NHL experience.

Gostisbehere brings something those players do not: excellent puck-moving capabilities and copious amounts of confidence.

He might experience growing pains in his own zone - particularly against bigger, stronger forwards on the forecheck - but his upside is unmatched in the Flyers' talent pool. Plus, it's not as if any of the Flyers' other defensemen had been exceptional in their own end in the first seven games to start the season.

"Defensive hockey is everybody on the ice," Hextall said. "I think unfairly, people put the onus always on the defenseman.

"There's three parts to it: there's the defense, there's the forwards, and trust me, they have a bigger part to do with it than people think. And then there's also the goalie. If one of your sectors is breaking down, you're not going to play good defense. It's a team effort. We're going to have to dig in now and really have big team efforts."

In a strange way, Hextall said the injuries could actually be a good thing.

"Maybe this will help us put a little more focus on team defense," Hextall said. "Because I think at times, we could use that."

Coach Craig Berube said the defensive effort from his forwards has been better at times during recent games. There are still issues he'd like to correct, many of which were on display in Chicago last Tuesday night.

One of the biggest complaints from Berube is that his players do a fine enough job breaking up plays in the defensive zone, but don't act definitively enough to get the puck out of the zone. Suddenly, with a turnover, the opposition's cycle starts all over.

"If you break up a play, you have to do something with it. Make a play and get it out," Berube said. "Make a hard play at that time. It might be [as simple as] getting the puck out of your zone [off the glass]."

Making plays with the puck, particularly in tight quarters, is Gostisbehere's specialty. He has little hesitation with the puck on his stick - and that's something Phantoms coach Terry Murray said he didn't try to change.

Murray has coached high-powered offensive defensemen before, such as Al Iafrate and Paul Coffey, who "play on the edge in their back end" and said that he's learned to accept their style of defending.

"I want to encourage big stuff from this kid because he's got some big stuff in him," Murray said last week in Allentown. "When our team has the puck, he excels. He's really explosive. He has incredible quickness - two strides. His hands are very quick. He pulls the puck from one side of his body to the other as good as most people you're going to see. What I love for a player who has really good puck skill is he's got a shot-first mentality - and he's got a really good, heavy, accurate shot that he gets through to the net."

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare left practice early yesterday after taking a puck in the face. He is fine to play tonight . . . Zac Rinaldo (upper-body injury) will not play tonight . . . Detroit has not won in Philadelphia (0-8-0) since sweeping the 1997 Stanley Cup final . . . Flyers chairman Ed Snider donated $5 million to his alma mater University of Maryland to fund the "Ed Snider Center for Enterprise & Markets" on campus.